UC Riverside honored faculty members for their achievements at the 2026 Faculty Recognition Reception on Thursday, March 5 at the Riverside Convention Center.
Faculty members were recognized for their promotions and advancements in the last academic year. They were also honored for receiving awards in research and creative activities from groups including national and international organizations. They include fellowships and recognition from academic societies.
Elizabeth Watkins, UCR’s provost and executive vice chancellor, congratulated faculty members on their advancements. As provost, she reviews all merit and promotion files.
“When people ask me what it’s like to work at UC Riverside, I tell them I have the privilege of working alongside ambitious, talented, and creative individuals—colleagues who are deeply dedicated to our students, our community, and the mission of improving lives through teaching, research, and service,” she said.
Visit the Awards and Honors section of Inside UCR to read more about some of the faculty achievements recognized at the ceremony. The honorees are listed below by college and school.
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Iván Aguirre, Elyse Ambrose, Michael Bates, Elizabeth Berger, Paul Chang, Vrinda Chidambaram, Emily Hue, Gloria Kim, Antoine Lentacker, Mark Minch-de Leon, Worku Nida, and Nawa Sugiyama.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Miguel Carreras, Derick Fay, Jeanette Kohl, Jennifer Nájera, Ben Newman, Tanya Nieri, Jeffrey Sacks, Allison White, and Sage Ni’Ja Whitson.
The following faculty members were promoted to step VI and above scale: Maria del Rosario Acosta López, Marcelle Chauvet, Sang-Hee Lee, Jennifer Merolla, Ellen Reese, Richard Rodríguez, and João Vargas.
The following faculty members advanced to distinguished professor: Peter Graham, Eric Schwitzgebel, and Sherryl Vint.
The following faculty members were promoted to senior continuing lecturer: Ruth Charloff, Young Hong, Frances Moore, Priscilla Ruedas, and Reiko Sato.
The following faculty members were promoted to continuing lecturer: Huda Aljord, Phuoc Duong, Stephen James, and Silviu Velovici.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Courtney Baker (Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Fellowship), Johannes Endres (Hamburg Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship), Alex Espinoza (The New Yorker Best Books of 2024), Savannah Esquivel, (2025 Best Article Award of the Association of Latin American Art), Georg Michels (National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship), Liz Przybylski (International Association for the Study of Popular Music: Canada - 2024 Book Prize, USA - 2025 Greg Tate Prize), José Luis Reynoso, (2024 Oscar G. Brokett Book Prize for Dance Research), Rachel Wu (Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers - National Science and Technology Council), and Tuppett Yates (The Bowlby-Ainsworth Award for Developmental Research on Attachment and Trauma and for Mentoring in the Bowlby-Ainsworth Tradition).
College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Sihem Cheloufi, Brian Collier, Patrick Degnan, Analisa Flores, Emma Gachomo, Natalie Holt, Daniel Koenig, Loralee Larios, Wei Vivian Li, Jernej Murn, William Porter, Maziar Raissi, and Edward Schwieterman.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Hoori Ajami, George Becker, Andrey Bekker, Rong Hai, Zhenyu (Arthur) Jia, Carolyn Rasmussen, Laura Sales, Brian Siana
The following faculty members were promoted to step VI and above scale: Meng Chen, Alec Gerry, Stephen Kane, Jikui Song, and Stefano Vidussi.
Among non-Senate faculty, Scott Heacox and Alexander Putnam were promoted to associate professor,
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Miguel Arratia Munoz (Guido Altarelli Award, Early Career Research Award), Ana Bahamonde (Young Investigator Award), James Baird (Outstanding Peer Reviewer Award), Barry Barish (Elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society, IUPAP-TIFR Homi Bhabha Award 2025), Mary Droser (Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Paleontological Society Medal), Theodore Garland (The August Krogh Award), John Heraty (Entomological Society of America Fellow), Natalie Holt (The DEI Award), Hailing Jin (Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, American Phytopathological Society Fellow), Stephen Kane (American Astronomical Society Fellow), Chow-Yang Lee (Entomological Society of American Fellow), Tim Lyons (Robert M. Garrels Award), Manuela Martins-Green (Elected to the Board of Directors of the Wound Healing Society and Fellow), Daniel Petras (Mattauch-Herzog Award, Simons Foundation Early Career Investigator in Aquatic Microbial Ecology and Evolution Awards), Shawn Westerdale (Department of Energy - Early Career Research Award), and Jingsong Zhang (AAAS Fellow).
Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Jia Chen, Xi Chen, Ran Cheng, Ke Du, Kevin Freedman, Yan Gu, Jia Guo, Kaveh Laksari, Amr Ahmed Magdy, Joshua Morgan, Silas Richelson, and Yihan Sun.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Cong Liu, Giulia Palermo, Evangelos Papalexakis, and Hideaki Tsutsui.
The following faculty members were promoted to step VI and above scale: Amir-Hamed Mohsenian-Rad and Zizhong Chen.
The following faculty members advanced to distinguished professor: Matthew Barth, Vassilis Tsotras.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Nael Abu-Ghazaleh (IEEE/ACM ICCAD: Top Pick in Hardware and Embedded Security), Emiliano De Cristofaro (Distinguished Member of Association for Computing Machinery), Ahmed Eldawy (ICDE 10-year Influential Paper Award), Trent Jaeger (IEEE Fellow), Cengiz Ozkan (ASME Fellow, NAI Fellow, RSC Fellow), Mihri Ozkan (NAI Invention Ambassador Award), Vagelis Papalexakis (2025 Early Career Research Award).
School of Business
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Richard Carrizosa.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Hai Che.
The following faculty members were promoted to step VI and above scale: Margaret Campbell.
School of Education
The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor with tenure: Eui Kim, Alice Lee, and Rican Vue.
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Uma Jayakumar.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Eunsoo Cho (Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers).
School of Medicine
The following faculty members were promoted to full professor: Ann Cheney and Andrew Subica.
Among non-Senate faculty, the following advanced to associate professor: Fadi Awad, Nancy Chung, Kelly Downey, Christina Kim, Simon Lim, Steve March, Alexander Nguyen, Xiomara Rocha-Cadman, Brenda Ross-Shelton, Suman Thapamagar, Justin Thomas, Huu Tam Truong, Wendy White, and Toshia Yamaguchi.
The following non-Senate faculty members were promoted to full professor: John Agapian, Adewale Ajumobi, Cindy Cai, Ronald Lo, Samar Nahas, Daniel Teraguchi.
The following faculty members were recognized for awards: Lisa Fortuna (Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), Robert Rodriguez (2025 Academy for Diversity & Inclusion in Emergency Medicine and Sheryl Heron, MD, MPH Legacy Award), Changcheng Zhou (American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow), and Natalie Zlebnik (2024 Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Award).
